MERDEKA! LOOKING BACK AT INDEPENDENCE DAY IN MALAYA, 31 AUGUST 19571

¹This is a revised version of a lecture delivered at the international seminar on ‘Britain and the Malay World’ held at the Royal Asiatic Society, 17–18 May 2007. A shorter version was given as a paper to the one-day symposium on ‘Freedoms at Midnight: The Iconography of Independence’ at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, 28 June 2007, whose other papers are published in The Round Table, 97 (398), October 2008.

Abstract

This article starts by examining the ceremonies in which the transfer of power from Britain was celebrated and legitimated half a century ago. It discusses Malay traditional rites which accompanied the birth of the nation-state and the rituals which the British devised to cover their retreat from empire. Both sides worked for a cordial hand-over in order to demonstrate to the world that the process was both right and effective. Such a smooth transition, however, suggested that the realities of power had scarcely changed and that the independence of the Federation was severely compromised. In fact, the records show that Malaya advanced to independence much faster than the British had expected and that, notwithstanding their anxieties about Malaya's prospects, they had no practical alternative to falling in with Tunku Abdul Rahman's timetable.

¹This is a revised version of a lecture delivered at the international seminar on ‘Britain and the Malay World’ held at the Royal Asiatic Society, 17–18 May 2007. A shorter version was given as a paper to the one-day symposium on ‘Freedoms at Midnight: The Iconography of Independence’ at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, 28 June 2007, whose other papers are published in The Round Table, 97 (398), October 2008.

Notes

¹This is a revised version of a lecture delivered at the international seminar on ‘Britain and the Malay World’ held at the Royal Asiatic Society, 17–18 May 2007. A shorter version was given as a paper to the one-day symposium on ‘Freedoms at Midnight: The Iconography of Independence’ at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, 28 June 2007, whose other papers are published in The Round Table, 97 (398), October 2008.

²See also The Times (London), 31 August 1957.

³Malaya was later joined in the Commonwealth by the monarchies of Lesotho (1966), Swaziland (1968), Tonga (1970) and Brunei (1984).

⁴Minutes in DO 35/9958.

⁵J. Chadwick, 24 July 1957, DO 35/9958.

⁶Sir Geofroy Tory (British high commissioner, Malaya) to Lord Home (secretary of state, Commonwealth Relations Office), 23 April 1960, DO 35/10036.

⁷Press reports, e.g. The Times, 3 September 1957; see also CO 1030/764, DO 35/9958, DO 35/10013.

⁸The sultans of Johore, Kelantan and Selangor were allotted different carriages in the procession. Physically slight, His Highness Ibrahim of Kelantan was overshadowed by his travelling companion, the statuesque and ebullient Queen Salote of Tonga, who endeared herself to the London crowd by refusing to close the canopy against torrential rain. In the coronation honours, the Sultan of Pahang was awarded an honorary GCMG, and Dato Onn bin Jaafar and Raja Uda bin Raja Muhammad (Mentri Besar of Selangor) received honorary knighthoods. Representatives of Malay royal houses had also attended the coronations of Edward VII (1902), George V (1911) and George VI (1937). For the significance of grand spectacles for reinforcing imperial hierarchies and connections, see Cannadine 2001.

⁹For example, in the contest for the throne of Perak in the 1870s, Raja Ismail had the weakest claim by birth and was passed over in favour of Abdullah at the meeting of chiefs convened by the British at Pangkor in January 1874, but Ismail's standing was strengthened and the legitimacy of the agreement was undermined by his possession of the regalia which he refused to surrender (Cowan 1961: 182–85, 187–89, 218).

¹⁰For centuries court orchestras of the Malay sultanates of Sumatra and West Malaysia had played at a sultan's installation and on other significant occasions such as royal births but, with a few exceptions, the practice died out in post-revolutionary Indonesia (Kartomi 1997: 3–15).

¹¹All this was new to Lord Kilmuir who was on his first visit to Malaya as leader of the British government delegation. He felt that the ‘weird jungly music restored the feeling of the East which had been slightly diluted by the British robes of the judges and the European dress of the spectators’. His lord chancellor's costume consisted of a wig, knee-breeches, a heavy tail-coat and a gold robe (Maxwell Fyfe 1964: 305–7).

¹²Sir Colin Allan, governor of the Seychelles (1973–76) and the Solomons (1976–78) quoted in Hyam (2006: 399–400).

¹³ The Independent (London), editorial, 17 December 2007.

¹⁴‘Merdeka comes to the Federation of Malaya’, despatch from John M. Farrior (second secretary, US Embassy, Kuala Lumpur) to the US State Department, 17 September 1957, RG 59: 797.00/9-1757. Farrior had been US consul-general in Kuala Lumpur immediately before independence.

¹⁵The Tunku admitted freely that he was careful to plan important events in his life so that they fell between propitious dates or happened in some mysterious harmony with lucky numbers. In 1962 he was delighted that the Malaysia agreement was signed on 1 August, his lucky day, but must have been discomforted the following year when its inauguration was postponed from 31 August to 16 September, Lee Kuan Yew's fortieth birthday. See biographical note, 27 June 1958, DO 35/9997; Miller (1959: 211); Lee (1998: 440–44).

¹⁶For this background I am grateful to participants at the international seminar on ‘Britain and the Malay World’ and particularly to Ms Shuhaimi Baba, director of the film docudrama, ‘1957 Hati Malaya’ (Heart of Malaya), Pesona Pictures, 2007.

¹⁷Lord Home (secretary of state, Commonwealth Relations Office) and Lord Perth (minister, Colonial Office) to Macmillan, PM(57)7, 21 February 1957, DO 35/9747 and PREM 11/2068.

¹⁸‘Merdeka comes to the Federation of Malaya’, RG 59: 797.00/9-1757.

¹⁹For the selection of the Duke of Gloucester as Her Majesty's representative, see CO 1030/841, 848, 851; DO 35/9747; PREM 11/2068.

²⁰For Kilmuir's role, see CO 1030/842 and LCO 2/5829, TNA; Maxwell Fyfe 1964: 305–7.

²¹F.A. Bishop (principal private secretary to the prime minister) to J.B. Hunt (Cabinet Office), 24 June 1957; Sir Norman Brook (Cabinet secretary) to F.A. Bishop, 20 July 1957, PREM 11/1925.

²²‘Merdeka comes to the Federation of Malaya’, RG 59: 797.00/9-1757.

²³Letter and note from Sir Gilbert Laithwaite (permanent under-secretary, Commonwealth Relations Office) to Sir Harry Lintott (Commonwealth Relations Office), 6 March 1957, CO 967/312. Laithwaite was reporting from Kuala Lumpur on preparations for independence. Carcosa had been built in 1897–98 for the resident-general of the Federated Malay States during Sir Frank Swettenham's term as the first holder of this post.

²⁴See PREM 11/1926; LCO 2/5829; Lynn (2001: I, xciii, note 133).

²⁵See PREM 11/1926 and OD 19/109.

²⁶The return of Carcosa was one in a series of moves by the British government to improve Anglo-Malaysian relations after their deterioration during the early years of Dr Mahathir's regime, The Times, 7 April 1984. Carcosa has since become a luxury hotel.

²⁷See CO 1030/842 and DO 35/9747.

²⁸See CO 1030/836 and DO 35/9785.

²⁹Sir Geofroy Tory to the Commonwealth Relations Office, 9 September 1957, CO 1030/845.

³⁰‘Merdeka comes to the Federation of Malaya’, RG 59: 797.00/9-1757.

³¹This paragraph is based on CO 1030/849 and DO 35/9491; The Times, 2 September 1957; Ooi (2006: 89–90); private communications.

³²Tunku Abdul Rahman's speech in Merdeka Stadium on 31 August 1957, quoted in Miller (1959: 208–9).

³³P. de Zulueta (private secretary to Macmillan), 15 August 1957, in Stockwell (1995: III, 412).

³⁴PREM 11/1927. Macmillan's message was presented to the Tunku by Lord Kilmuir.

³⁵See also the telegram of 3 August and the despatch of 8 August 1957 from Sir Donald MacGillivray to Lennox-Boyd in which the high commissioner reported on the process and results of the general election, CO 1030/225.

³⁶The general election was for 52 of the 98 seats in the new Federal Legislative Council. Although Malays amounted to just less than half the total population, they comprised over 84% of the electorate. This was because many adult non-Malays were not yet federal citizens or, if they were, had failed to register on the electoral roll. Chinese accounted for 37% of the population but only 11.2% of the electorate. The single electable seat not won by the Alliance was that which went to the Pan-Malayan Islamic Party. The 46 non-electable seats were filled by nominated members, five of whom were appointed by the high commissioner in consultation with the leader of the party winning the greatest number of elected seats, thereby reinforcing the Tunku's position.

³⁷In May 1954 an Alliance delegation to London had failed to persuade the then secretary of state, Oliver Lyttelton, to accede to their demand for a larger proportion of elected seats on the Federal Legislative Council. Returning empty-handed, the Alliance leadership mounted a boycott of the public service and forthcoming elections. This forced the Malayan authorities to compromise over the composition of the legislative council.

³⁸This chance remark, made by Sir John Martin of the Colonial Office and overheard by the press, may have heartened the Malayan delegation when it arrived at London airport but it reinforced critics’ suspicions of ‘colonial stooges’.

³⁹This episode, which began with an abortive mission by Alliance leaders to London in April-May 1954 and ended in July with a compromise over the proportion of elected to unelected seats in the federal legislature, is covered in Stockwell (1995: II, 21–68).

⁴⁰See CO 967/313.

⁴¹The National Monument, Tugu Negara, was designed by Felix de Welden and inspired by the Iwo Jima memorial in Washington DC. It was completed in 1966 but annual ceremonies have been discontinued.

⁴²See, for example, Mohamed Amin and Caldwell (1977). For an examination of the limitations of the neo-colonial thesis when applied to post-colonial Malaya/Malaysia, see White (2004).

⁴³‘Future of the Alliance government’, note by the Commissioner-General's Office, March 1957, CO 1030/440.

⁴⁴‘The outlook in Malaya up to 1960’, note by the commissioner-general's office, [May 1957], paragraph 11, FO 371/129342, no. 8. One official commented that the ‘somewhat pessimistic analyses … need not discourage us unduly’ since similar forecasts had been made for India after partition.

⁴⁵‘Conference on constitutional advance in the Federation of Malaya’, memorandum by Lennox-Boyd for the Cabinet Colonial Policy Committee, 7 January 1956, CAB 134/1202, CA(56)3.